Hybrid Fault-Tolerant Flight

Control System Design

Against Partial Actuator
Failures
 A model to represent loss of control effectiveness in
an aircraft is developed by analyzing physical faults in the
hydraulically-driven control surfaces. A hybrid fault-tolerant
control system (FTCS) that combines the merits of passive and
active FTCSs is proposed to accommodate this kind of partial
actuator failures.

The hybrid FTCS is able to first slow down the rate of fault induced
system deterioration with minimal fault information so that the
fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) schemes can have additional
time to achieve more accurate fault diagnosis. Once the correct
fault information is obtained, the hybrid FTCS can counteract the
faults effectively through an optimal reconfigurable controller.
Depending on the availability of actuator redundancies, the passive

FTCS and the reconfigurable controller are designed in the

framework of linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach. Case studies
of an aircraft subject to different degree of loss of control
effectiveness have been carried out to prove the effectiveness of
this new approach to FTCS.
Function of Actuators in an Aircraft
Actuators that link control commands to physical actions on an aircraft are
essential elements in any flight control system. In an aircraft, hydraulic
mechanisms are widely used for actuation purposes due to their high force to
inertia ratio.
For instance in an F-16 fighter, an F-18 fighter, a JAS-39 Gripen aircraft, and a
Boeing 737, the actuators such as ailerons and elevators are all in the form of
hydraulic driven control surfaces.
The function of a control surface is to produce the required torque and
moment to maneuver the aircraft. Different maneuvering commands are
realized through deflecting appropriate control surfaces in various parts of the
aircraft. When all components function normally, the desired control actions
can be carried out exactly as the controller has demanded. However, when
some failures occur in the actuators, the desired control commands cannot be
completed as expected. The stability and the performance of the aircraft can
suffer as a consequence.
Analysis of Faults in Hydraulic Driven Control
Surfaces

A hydraulic driven actuator consists of three main parts:

1)a hydraulic power supply;
2) a servo-valve; and
3) control surface.
The power supply delivers hydraulic fluid to the high-pressure port of the
servo-valve at a constant pressure.
 As shown in Fig. 1, the torque motor converts the correspondingly voltage
from the controller into the angular displacement on the baffle, which generates
a differential pressure in the servo-valve. Subsequently, the servo-valve regulates
the motion of the actuator by directing the fluid flow to and from the actuator
chamber.
When the valve spool is pushed or pulled by the torque motor that is driven by
the control signal, the amount of fluid delivered to the actuator chamber will
change. The fluid will then move the piston in the actuator chamber. Since the
control surface is physically connected to the piston through the piston rod, the
displacement of the piston leads to movement in the control surface. The torque
generated by the force through a hinge to deflect the control surface also has to
overcome the aerodynamic force during a flight.
 A common failure in a hydraulic powered actuator is loss of pressure in
the supply pump due to leaks. Reduction in pressure could cause stalling
of the actuator when it can no longer balance the aerodynamic load
imposed from the control surface during a flight. In an aircraft whose
control surfaces are manipulated through hydraulic actuators, stalling of
an actuator may have disastrous consequences, because control actions
would not get executed as expected. In this paper, an incorrect supply
pressure is considered as the fault condition to illustrate the hybrid FTCS
design concept and process.
OBJECTIVES AND FORMULATION OF HYBRID FAULT
TOLERANT CONTROL SYSTEMS

The objective of the hybrid FTCS in this paper can be stated

as follows.

1) When a fault is detected, but not yet completely diagnosed,

the performance deterioration of the closed-loop system
should be slowed down through a passive control system.

2) After the fault diagnosis is completed, the optimal performance can then
be achieved through an appropriate reconfigurable controller.
Conclusion
A model of an aircraft with loss of control effectiveness is developed based
on analysis of physical faults in the hydraulic driven control surfaces. A
hybrid FTCS combining a passive and an active FTCS approaches is proposed
to counteract partial actuator faults. The unique feature of the proposed
system is that, in the presence of actuator faults, the passive FTCS can be
used first to stabilize the system with minimal fault information. Once the
more detailed fault diagnostic information becomes available, a
reconfigurable controller can then be synthesized and used to improve the
performance. The effectiveness of the proposed FTCS scheme and the design
procedure are validated by using both linear and nonlinear case studies.